Getting both: increasing applicant quantity and quality using Google Ads
The Picture
The program director of the Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DPT) program at one of LFM’s clients (private, liberal arts, midwest) was growing concerned about three trends she was observing in the marketplace:
Application volume for the program had been steadily decreasing over the past few cycles, mirroring national trends
Program faculty were reporting a decline in the overall quality of the application pool
Competing schools were launching new programs, increasing the number of competitors by roughly 11% per year
The pool of quality prospective students is shrinking, while the number of competitors is growing.
That’s not good. Unfortunately, it’s also not rare.
In fact, the “shrinking market, increasing competition” problem is one of the most common challenges facing institutions of higher education.
The Plan
Little Foxes Marketing developed a strategy designed to increase application quantity and quality. The plan included, but was not limited to, the following tactics:
Conducted a competitive analysis to determine who the university was actually competing with, uncover their marketing strategy, and discover new areas of opportunity
Developed a robust search campaign, utilizing text and display creative, to reach students at their moment of intent
Showed ads to users who previously visited the website program pages but didn’t convert
Utilized A/B testing to tighten messaging, imagery, and calls-to-action
The Payoff
150% increase in applications
Applications for the DPT program grew from 40 in the prior year to over 100, resulting in an increase of over 150%.
Meaningful increase in applicant quality
70% of this year’s applicants qualified for the interview stage, compared to 50% for previous cycles, meaning the university was able to interview 50 more applicants than they did the year prior.